


Expectations

by icarus_chained



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Friendship, Gen, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-15
Updated: 2012-08-15
Packaged: 2017-11-12 05:53:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/487448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another set of five microficlets. Nick Fury and Phil Coulson, over the years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Expectations

**Author's Note:**

> The last one refers to events on the Helicarrier. Reader's choice as to whether Phil survives.

**Expectations:**

Nick smiled, watching the man's careful, impassive face stiffen a little bit. "Not what you expected?" he asked, mildly. It was only fair. A large, rather conspicuous black man with a very distinctive eye-patch was not most people's idea of an effective spy-master.

The recruit, Coulson, only raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure you've often used people's expectations to your advantage, sir," was all he said, and smiled into Nick's sudden, and not altogether friendly, grin.

**Presentations:**

Watching Coulson present an oral report was simultaneously one of the funniest and most alarming things Nick had ever seen. SHIELD agents were expected to show a certain degree of cool, but the man's utter, deadpan sangfroid was just on the border of scary, and his casual, back-handed retorts to outlandish propositions utterly hilarious. Then and there, Nick decided Coulson was in charge of asset acquisition. Any man that unflappable _had_ to be put to use.

**Trust:**

The first crack Nick saw in Coulson's facade, it was as the man was sending Barton and Romanov into the hot zone for the first time. Barely noticable, just a tense curl of the man's fingers. No threat to Coulson himself would have garnered so much as a flinch. But then ...

"It's always the hardest part," Nick said, quietly. "Sending them out, possibly to die."

Coulson looked back at him, startled, alarmed at having let himself slip, and then ... Then, with a slump of his shoulders, and more trust than many of them could expect, he smiled faintly, and let Nick see his agreement.

**Friendship:**

Half of SHIELD knew about Phil's trading cards by now. To the point where gently ribbing him over them had become a mild pasttime (past a certain level, and only on clearance from Barton, Romanov, or Nick himself). Phil was surprisingly unselfconscious about it, holding them up with a certain amount of defiant pride, and not minding the gentle mockery.

Nick couldn't claim the same himself. But then, the only man who mocked him, very gently, about his own collection of memorabilia, the notes and designs he'd collected from Howard that meant more to him that just SHIELD archives, was Phil himself. Because Phil ... was the only one who knew.

**Humour:**

It had been meant as a joke, initially, that certain type of irreverent, gallows humour that came with their jobs. "Did you ever wonder what happened to Fury's missing eye?" "What do you mean? Fury ain't missing an eye. It's just the spare one's called Coulson."

It had been meant as a joke. Standing on the bridge of the Helicarrier, feeling half-blind for the first time in years ... Nick doesn't think it'll ever be funny again.


End file.
